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Adam Air crash (edited)

MAKASSAR, Indonesia - An Indonesian jetliner crashed into mountains during a storm, killing 90 people, officials said Tuesday after finding the wreckage.

The airline said 12 people on board the Boeing 737 survived, but the national aviation chief said that reports of survivors could not be confirmed.

“I hope the people are alive, but so far there is no clear information about that,” Ichsan Tatang told The Associated Press.

Search and rescue teams arriving at the crash site on Sulawesi’s western coast early Tuesday found the charred remains of Adam Air’s flight KI-574 and scores of bodies, said police Chief Col. Genot Hariyanto.

“Twelve people survived when the plane with 102 on board crashed in heavy rain into the mountains of Indonesia’s Sulawesi island, a spokesman for the airline said on Tuesday.“

Source: Yahoo News

The disappearance of the plane came two days after the sinking of an Indonesian ferry, more than 400 of whose passengers were still unaccounted for yesterday.

This info is wrong. The Transpotation acidently gave out wrong info about the crash. The plane is still missing.

Brief history:
In September 2005, a Mandala Airlines Boeing 737 crashed after take off on Sumatra island, killing 143 people.

In September 1997, a Garuda Airlines Airbus crashed into a jungle-covered mountain slope in Sumatra, killing all 234 people aboard. Two months later, a Silk Air Boeing 737 jet crashed into a river on Sumatra, killing 104 people.

Updated News 14-Jan-2007

BARRU, Indonesia (Reuters) - Rescuers have found fragments of human hair and scalp that might come from passengers on a missing Indonesian airliner, a rescue official said on Sunday.

The remains will be sent for DNA testing, Muslimin, a rescue official in Makassar, said by telephone.

Members of an Indonesian rescue team from the Marines display a piece of debris found in Tanjung Butu that is believed to be from a missing Indonesian plane, outside the district of Barru, South Sulawesi on January 13, 2007. (REUTERS/Ahmed Tawil)
Pieces of wreckage of the Adam Air Boeing 737-400 that vanished from radar screens on New Year’s Day with 102 people aboard have been found in the past few days floating in the sea or washed up on beaches off Sulawesi island.

Officials have suggested the plane might have crashed into the sea off the west coast of Sulawesi, disintegrating into small pieces.

“Some human hair and scalp suspected to be that of the victims of the missing Adam Air plane were found this morning in Dutungan island in the Pare Pare area,” Muslimin said.

He did not say how long the DNA testing would take.

Makassar, Sulawesi’s largest city and the coordinating point for the search, is about 1,400 km northeast of Jakarta. Pare Pare is a two-hour drive north from Makassar. Both are on Sulawesi’s west coast.

A search team found part of one of the plane’s wings on Saturday night, Budi Haryoto, an official from the national search and rescue agency said.

He said the 1.5 metres long fragment was still being examined to find out if it was part of the right or left wing.

A fisherman found the tail stabiliser of the Boeing on Tuesday snared in his nets but initially stored it under his traditional stilted house because he thought it was only a slab of plywood. He was given a cash reward of 50 million rupiah ($5,500) on Saturday for finding the first piece of the missing jet.

BLACK BOX

Part of a passenger seat with a serial number on it was found on Sunday in waters around Pasir Putih island roughly half way between Pare Pare and Makassar, Lieutenant Andi Ichsan, an Indonesian marine involved in the search, told Reuters.

Troops in a rubber boat also found a piece of an emergency exit door off Sakuala island in Pangkep district, he said.

On Saturday, pieces of clothing that might be linked to passengers were also found, according to the Web site of Indonesian TV station SCTV.

Despite the possibility that the Boeing had broken up, Indonesian navy ships assisted by a U.S. oceanographic ship have been trying to locate its fuselage, which could still house the flight recorder that could provide clues to explain the disaster.

Search mission chief First Air Marshal Eddy Suyanto said on Saturday that the search for the plane’s main body and black box was being hampered by the depth of the sea in areas where metal objects had been detected in the Makassar Strait.

Strong winds and heavy seas were also making the search more difficult at the weekend.

The flight recorder is set up to give off a signal for 30 days to aid detection, but it is likely to be very hard to locate in waters as deep as 1,700 metres in the area.

So far no bodies confirmed as the missing passengers have been found. Suyanto said previously that, considering that parts of the plane found so far were mostly small, a body was unlikely to have survived the disaster in one piece.

The 17-year-old plane was heading from Surabaya in East Java to Manado in northern Sulawesi when it vanished in bad weather on Jan. 1. The plane made no distress call, although the pilot had reported concerns over crosswinds.

(Additional reporting by Ade Mardiyati in Jakarta)

Source: TheStar Online